Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Challenges: Toward Environment-Friendly Mining Process

Abstract

Blockchain technology is one of the most disrupted innovations developed in the 21 century. It was basically proposed by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 as a solution to the double-spending risk associated with peer-to-peer payment systems[2]. The mechanism of blockchain technology relies on a chain of digital signatures that uses the private and public keys to secure transactions between two parties in the form of blocks. Each block hashed into the blockchain based on the proof of work concept, which is basically a vote of a group of participant nodes (CPUs). Nevertheless, to maintain the continuity of blockchain, a reward system in the form of bitcoin has been developed to motivate miners to execute transactions, which leads to high energy consumption and related environmental impacts present an imminent threat to blockchain survival. This research project aims to further investigate this challenge and provide a scientific-based solution that could help reduce the environmental impact of mining while maintaining the prosperity of blockchain technology